The Lack of Feminization in Ernest Hemingway’s free essay sample

In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway â€Å"not only contributes to the body of travel literature that offers an insider’s perspective on the lifestyle of the self-exiled writers, artists, and bon vivants who made Paris in the 1920s legendary, but also mythologizes this historic moment† (Field 36). Lady Brett Ashley is a â€Å"symbol of this post-war environment† in that her power comes from â€Å"preying on the weakness of a society devalued by the breakdown of pre-war values and ideals† (Wilentz 189). On the other hand, â€Å"Nurse Ratched—a sterile, distant, and oppressive force who psychologically castrates [her] male patients—represents Kesey’s fears of a cold war era that fosters an impotent, feminine American masculinity through a climate of fear and conformity† (Meloy 3). Kesey’s criticism of a â€Å"cold-war society that he believed fundamentally emasculated men strikes a chord in contemporary America† (4). In both Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, men are not capable of being dominant in their shattered environments; therefore, masculine qualities must ironically be found in the female characters Lady Brett Ashley and Nurse Ratched, which emphasizes the destructive atmospheres of post-war Europe and the Cold War Era. We will write a custom essay sample on The Lack of Feminization in Ernest Hemingway’s or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Lady Brett Ashley is one of Hemingway’s â€Å"richest† female characters; â€Å"her personality gradually emerges as an intriguing mix of femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability, morality and dissolution† (Fulton 61). However, she has also been seen as â€Å"either a destroyer of men or fantasy figure—‘bitch or goddess’† (Nolan Jr. 105). Thus, as a true â€Å"Hemingwayesque protagonist†, Lady Brett Ashley â€Å"comprehends many forms of identity besides her maleness and attendant social masculinity† (Onderdonk 67). In addition to her ambiguity, as Richard Fantina described, â€Å"The ideal Hemingway woman demonstrates power and a will to dominate† (84). Although, â€Å"Traditionally, when critics comment on masochism in Hemingway they generally do so idiomatically, without touching on the sexual implications, by referring to the many physical wounds his characters suffer† (Fantina 85). For example, there comes â€Å"an emotional wounding by Brett, which Jake associates with his unmanning sexual wounding during the war† (Adair 73) and he receives â€Å"intense humiliations at the hands of the sexually peripatetic ‘new woman’† (Onderdonk 62). Both masculinity and opposition to the war exist â€Å"at the cost of marginalizing all women† (Michel 127). As Lorie Fulton mentions in her â€Å"Reading Around Jake’s Narration: Brett Ashley and The Sun Also Rises†, â€Å"The most damning critical charges against Brett, the ones that delineate her as a ‘bitch’ with devastating powers, seem rooted in one portion of the text: Jake’s aforementioned assertion that he would probably have had no problems after his injury had he not met Brett† (64). Being described as a ‘bitch’ here â€Å"implies that the condition it names is—that bad thing—to be feminized† (Onderdonk 61). While feminization is not a word Hemingway himself uses, the metaphorical representation of men acting or being treated ‘like a woman’ is a central concern of his works† (Onderdonk 70). However, â€Å"sexual difference† is â€Å"the driving force behind the novel’s other iterations of difference† in The Sun Also Rises (70). For instance, Brett Ashley â€Å"wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that† (Hemingway 29-30). Whatever is meant by ‘all that,’ Brett evokes â€Å"androgyny and gender ambiguity in both physical appearance and attire† (Elliott 77). As Dolores Schmidt said in â€Å"The Great American Bitch†, â€Å"Her freedom to travel, drink, and talk like one of the chaps† is, nonetheless, ‘damned attractive’, although her ability to â€Å"dominate every man she meets dooms her to a life of unfulfillment† (902). In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, themes of â€Å"control, submission, and alienation link to gender, representing similar fears of female empowerment and a male power rendered impotent by a sterile social structure† (Meloy 5). As Daniel Vitkus explains, â€Å"The text celebrates a ‘natural’ maleness which s placed in opposition to a domineering, emasculating representation of the feminine†, much like in The Sun Also Rises (66). â€Å"As Robert Forrey points out, ‘The premise of the novel is that women ensnare, emasculate, and, in some cases, crucify men† (qtd. in Vitkus 66). In the novel’s setting, an insane asylum, â€Å"The wa rd is run by Nurse Ratched, who controls the process of turning men into machines† (Vitkus 65). This process of transforming the patients into â€Å"obedient automatons† involves the loss of their sexuality, their masculinity, and their individuality (65). The decline of the â€Å"single working woman† is apparent in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when she becomes the â€Å"castrating bitch, and the neglectful mother, the selfish pursuer of sensual pleasures† (Alvarado 353). â€Å"Richard D. Maxwell, in ‘The Abdication of Masculinity in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ says that Ken Kesey ‘blames the loss of man’s freedom on his willingness to allow the female to take over his role, dominate him, and a consequence rob him of his masculinity† (qtd. in Alvarado 351). Nurse Ratched derives a great deal of her power from her ability to infantilize and humiliate the men—to render them sexless† (Vitkus 77). Thus, the text associates â€Å"naturalness, maleness, and sexuality: overly aggressive women are presented as a threat to all this and the cause of madness† (78-79). â€Å"The Big Nurse is described as a woman who denies her essential femaleness in order to exercise power over men† (77). The men in the ward have been â€Å"whipped† by the Big Nurse, consequentially taking away â€Å"their ability to laugh and replaced it with fear† (77). Kesey’s description in the novel itself captures both the resentment and uncertainty Nurse Ratched exudes, an obvious factor in her dominant character: Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh-colored enamel, blend of white and cream and baby blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils—everything working together except the color on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it. Kesey 11) In this passage, the â€Å"satirical intentions† are clear: â€Å"Big Nurse is inhuman, this time herself rat-like, and a piece of machinery; her breasts create a confusing, bionic effect, which she wants to conceal in her stiff, starched uniform† (Gefin 98). American fiction does include, without a doubt, a long line of â€Å"negative femal e characters, from Dame Van Winkle to Margot Macomber and beyond, and Big Nurse stands out even in this infamous company† (96). Although their novels were written about forty years apart, Hemingway and Kesey both wrote novels dealing with the aftermath of war, and how it affects certain gender roles. For Hemingway, most of his characters are â€Å"truly members of the lost generation and are affected not solely by war†, but also the â€Å"political and social climate in America as well† (Schwarz 180). Likewise, Kesey’s description of the Combine is â€Å"a powerful critique of American society and the function of madness in that society† (Vitkus 65) and her ward is â€Å"a representation of an American culture that has allowed men’s sexual impulses to be repressed†.